


gunsmoke and old paper

by iimpavid, It_MightBe_Love



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Dark Tower
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Epistolary, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Historical Fantasy, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Character, Kid Fic, Letters, Magical Artifacts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-08 00:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16418945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid, https://archiveofourown.org/users/It_MightBe_Love/pseuds/It_MightBe_Love
Summary: The house on Dutch Hill stands an empty-eyed, eerie sentinel watching the decades pass with its yard overgrown by weeds and wild roses and its mailbox rusting shut.Of course, that’s until Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers get dared to go in.__April Miller writes a letter to G*d and gets a reply. G*d, apparently, wants to be called Bucky.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little unbeta'd AU full of wholesome content from us to you.

April's seven when she gets the idea. Something rabbi said at Hebrew school, and it's the only time April's really allowed to leave the plantation on account of a lot of Grown Up things that daddy talks about in hushed voices but that April knows is on account of her being Really Very Smart for a seven-year-old. Rabbi says she's a miracle and a gift and that it's fine that Mama seems to not like her because Mama _does_ like her. She's _mama_.

April doesn't know if she agrees, but the idea is there all the same. Which is that in the Torah it used to be that people would talk to G*d by writing Him things. 

She writes in Hebrew because that's how Rabbi said to do it, even though her Hebrew isn't the best and her penmanship is terribly sloppy--

> _My name is April Lynette Miller and I just turned seven on September 11 and this year that was a Thursday and I was born on a Thursday so that made it special. Rabbi says I'm Very Smart but I would like to trade being Very Smart for mama to love me like she loves my sisters Jezebel and Eugenia and June, and even Corianne. I'm not very picky._
> 
> _I don't mean to be ungrateful, because I know Daddy loves me very much, and he likes taking me to meet his Very Important Friends, but mama wears really pretty dresses and I'd like to be a princess like her._
> 
> _(In any case I hope this gets to you. I don't know where the postbox is for the house and I'm not allowed to go out without a nanny. Last time I did my big sister Jez took me into the swamp for the swamp gods to eat me and a gator almost ate me instead. You shoulda heard daddy hollering after.)_
> 
> _Thank you very much for listening, April._

She closes with the Hebrew prayer of thanks they're learning in Hebrew class and then sticks it in the old wrought iron post box in Daddy's study that smells like ash and gunsmoke.

* * *

 There’s a haunted house on Dutch Hill and every single kid in the neighborhood gets dared to go touch it at least once. Some of them bring back souvenirs. Some get dragged by friends and end up wetting themselves in fear of the unknown. Most just keep walking, laughing uneasily because there’s no way in hell they’re gonna be that dumb. Nobody wants to get eaten by ghosts or whatever else is haunting the three-story Victorian sandwiched between apartment buildings. There’s a reason it hasn’t been torn down yet and that reason can’t be anything good.

The rumor is that an ax murderer hides out there having escaped the asylum. The truth is, not that anyone bothers to ask around about it, a lot sadder: it had belonged to a young man who’d inherited it from a distant cousin. He’d been drafted into the Great War before he could even find a wife to help him make it into a home. No one delivered his body home and it’s gone into limbo, the city not quite able to justify tearing it down in the 20’s and entirely unable to afford to replace it with a new housing project in the 30’s.

So the house on Dutch Hill stands an empty sentinel watching the decades pass with its yard overgrown by weeds and wild roses and its mailbox rusting shut.

Of course, that’s until Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers get dared to go in.

Steve, because it’s his nature, has never turned down a dare in his 11 touch-and-go years of life and Bucky knows that there’s no way in hell Mrs. Rogers will forgive him if Steve gets eaten by an ax murdering ghost so he has to go, too. He’s not happy about it. Jumpy and jittery and channeling all that nervous energy into thinking uncharitable things about Tommy Riley and the Hell those Catholic kids at St. Andrew’s always seem so freaked out about.

(Bucky doesn’t get that fire and brimstone stuff. Gehinnom makes a lot more sense anyway seein’ as it’s like sticking souls in the wash. Sure being scrubbed in boiling hot water and borax might sound like a punishment but you don’t actually punish your socks for getting dirty you’re just doing what’s necessary to get ‘em clean so you can wear ‘em again.)

He stares at the door. Its paint is peeling and the doorknob has fallen out. “Do we really hafta go inside, Stevie? Just touch it and let’s get outta here that’ll count.”

“Gotta get a souvenir, Buck.”

It’s just one sentence but it’s enough to communicate what Bucky’s thinking: that neither of them wants to be here longer than absolutely necessary. The difference is Steve’s stubborn enough to actually go into a house haunted by an escaped ax murderer. Bucky checks over his shoulder. Between the rotting wood fence and the wild hedges, there’s no seeing Tommy standing out on the street. Which means Tommy can’t see them.

“Uh-huh, okay, nope,” Bucky says, arguing with himself, apparently, because there’s no making Steve see common sense anyway. He climbs the porch after his best friend and instead of going for the front door opens the rusted mailbox instead. The hinges on the lid scream in protest and every single hair on Bucky’s body stands on end; he’s sure he’s gonna have nightmares about that sound forever.

Inside there’s not a lot. Just a water-warped magazine so old the print’s a giant smudge and a letter. The envelope is bright white, brand new, and unaddressed. The paper’s thin but there’s definitely a letter inside it. Bucky, not sure why he does it, grabs the letter, folds it in half before Steve can see, sticks it in his pocket. Then, he grabs the magazine and tosses it to Steve. “There’s your souvenir now let’s get outta here.”

* * *

 

There’s a lot of weird things about the letter from the house on Dutch Hill. Like the envelope being brand new and shaped funny— it’s too long, too thin— and the lack of a return address or even an addressee. The letter’s written in Hebrew in writing that makes Bucky’s look neat and his teachers despair over his penmanship whether he’s writing in English or not.

Weirder still: the letter is dated October 2, 1987.

Bucky stares at the date wide-eyed as he does the math over and over again in his head. If the letter was written in 1987 then that’s a whole 54 four years in the future from 1933.

He thinks about the book his mom reads him before bed, about the scientists in England with a time machine.

The only sensible thing to do in a situation like this is to write back.

> _March 3rd, 1933_

> _Dear April,_
> 
> _I’m not going to write back in Hebrew because my Hebrew’s about as bad as my penmanship. Happy Birthday, although I suppose it’s a little late for that_ but _I hope you had a nice day anyway. My mom knows this rhyme about when babies are born that says Thursday’s child’s got far to go or something. I guess that means you’ll travel a lot? It says that Tuesday babies are full of grace. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway? That I’ll be a good dancer?_
> 
> _I guess it’ll make more sense if I tell you I was born on a Tuesday. It’s almost my birthday, too! In a week I’ll be ten._
> 
> _You seem nice so if your mom doesn’t like you she’s stupid. That’s probably mean to say and I don’t like to say mean things about people’s moms but I’m pretty sure it’s a rule that moms and dads have to like their kids evenly. My mom tells me and Becca that all the time whenever we get into fights about who she likes more._
> 
> _I hope you get to be a princess like your mom someday. Are there a lot of princesses in the future? Are you an alien?_
> 
> _Best,_
> 
> _James Buchanan Barnes_
> 
> _P.S._
> 
> _Call me Bucky, though, okay? James is my dad and he’s dead._

He seals the letter and writes April Lynette Miller on it in his best print. The single most harrowing thing Bucky does in his life to date is going back to the house on Dutch Hill to stick his letter in the mailbox. The second-most harrowing thing is going back again on the way home from school to see if, impossibly, April has replied.


	2. Chapter 2

April's daddy calls her into his study to hand her a letter. He looks baffled by it since the blocky print is in English and she hasn't started learning English yet-- not to mention it turned up in his previously-empty paperweight mailbox yellowed with age from Brooklyn, New York.

April flees across the plantation and into the little-used Blue Parlour to read her letter. She never gets mail.

G*d, apparently, wants to be called Bucky. 

She writes back as neatly as she can.

> October 12, 1987
> 
> Bucky,
> 
> Our daddy's have the same name, I think that's pretty neat.
> 
> I don't think you're supposed to call mamas stupid. I call my sisters stupid sometimes and I get in trouble. Daddy says it's rude to tell people you're smarter than they are on account of people having Feelings. I think if I know I'm smarter then I should tell them though since how else are they supposed to know when they're wrong?
> 
> Happy Birthday!
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> April
> 
> Postscript. My Daddy calls me starling sometimes. It isn't as neat as Bucky, but there isn't a good derivative of April for nicknames.
> 
> Post Postscript. I learned derivative from my tutor yesterday. It means when you make something out of something else but they're still similar.

* * *

> March 13, 1933
> 
> Dear April,
> 
> You’re supposed to start letters with “Dear” and the person’s name. My teachers say it’s polite and let’s them know you’re friendly and stuff. (Well not the “and stuff” part that’s me saying that.)
> 
> James is a dad name. Almost everybody I know has a dad or granddad named James. I think Steve’s dad’s name was Joseph though but it’s still a J name so I guess it works. (Steve’s my best friend who lives two floors up. He’s a year older than me but got held back on account of being sick all the time and spending a year in an iron lung when we were little. His dad died right after the Great War. His mom Sarah’s a nurse. Me and Steve have been pals pretty much forever.)
> 
> I get in trouble when I call my sister stupid, too. But usually it’s the other way around. She’s a know-it-all and a busybody and I don’t know why she doesn’t get that she’s supposed to respect me since I’m her big brother and all. Maybe that’s the real reason why you’re not supposed to call your sisters stupid? Which is a dumb reason because if you’re smarter than them, well, you’re smarter than them no matter who’s the oldest.
> 
> I think Starling is a pretty nickname. Starling. Starling. It looks funny when I write it. I have to make my handwriting nicer so it doesn’t look bad to write it so I guess I’ll stick with calling you April.
> 
> I’m glad you wrote back, April. How’d you send me a letter 50 years in the future anyway? Or 50 years in the past? It’s like a radio play.
> 
> Do you listen to the radio? Every Sunday night Mr. Adler on floor 6 puts on his radio and everybody who can crowds into his living room to listen to the news and whatever play’s playing. There are other folks with radios but me and mom and Becca like Mr. Adler best.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Bucky

* * *

 

> November 5, 1987
> 
> Dear Bucky,
> 
> I only have tutors, all my letter writing is learned from Temple though, I suppose I see how it might be considered polite. 'Dear' feels very familiar but I think it makes sense since I'm writing you letters and we're already talking about our daddys. I suppose we're friends. I've never had a friend before. It's nice. (I don't have a best friend, you're my first friend, if that weren't obvious since I just said I'd never had a friend before. Rabbi might be my friend but I think he's supposed to be kind on account of him being our Rabbi. The girls in Hebrew school don't like me on account of my Hebrew being better but also on account of I don't speak English yet. Daddy says I'll learn when I'm ten. We play games and my tutor speaks Creole 'cause we live in Louisiana. (If you're ever in Louisiana, you pronounce it Loo-Z-Anna. If you pronounce it Louey-see-anna everyone will know you're not from here and I guess they say mean things? But I'm not allowed off the plantation unless I'm with Daddy or going to Temple or Hebrew school).
> 
> My sisters are all older than I am, except Corianne. She's younger than me by two years, but she's dumb because she cut all her hair off last week and mama had a conniption. I learned that word from the nanny when she sent me to my room on account of mama throwing a vase at Daddy because he was drinking his brandy again and he laughed himself sideways when he saw what Cori had done.
> 
> Starling makes me feel like a princess, but I think maybe being a princess isn't all it's cracked up to be seeing as the princesses in all the stories seem kind of useless.
> 
> I'm sorry about your friend Steve's Daddy. My daddy has fought in two wars. He's a General. He's the best. Maybe I'll grow up to be a General like him. It sounds more interesting.
> 
> I watch movies with my babcia. Her name is Katherine Adler and she was a movie star for a really long time.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> April

He keeps April’s letters in a cigar box he digs out of the trash. Her letters don’t come often even though he checks the mailbox on the house on Dutch Hill once a week, every week, rain or shine. The house is a lot less scary now that he’s got a good reason to approach it. April’s letters always come in weird too-long envelopes with blue patterns printed on the inside. Sometimes the paper is ruled with neat blue lines like the loose leaf paper his mother uses at her office. Others it’s blank and so bright white he has to squint to read it in the sun. He can’t hardly ever wait to get home before reading her letters.

It’s a little over a year, settling into 1935, before he starts bundling them together with string in the order they’re dated. He thinks it’s telling that April has never answered the question about whether or not she’s an alien— not that he asks anymore because it’s rude to press someone about that kind of thing.

He tells Steve about April not long after that since he has some dozen-odd letters all neat and tidy with varying degrees of legibility and Steve’s his best friend. It’s a crime to have kept the letters from him this long, Bucky’s sure, and he braces himself for Steve to be mad about it. The earliest ones aren’t in English but the dates are and that’s what really matters.

He hands a few to Steve, tells him, “I’ve been writing to a girl who lives in the future and if you tell my ma I’m crazy and get me hauled off to the funny farm I’ll never forgive you. Anyway, I’m not sure if she’s an alien or not but she writes like a normal person and she’s Jewish and I never heard of an alien who was Jewish.” And Bucky would know. He’s read a lot of books about aliens in his 12 years of life. He’s practically an expert on the subject.

 

> February 5, 1937
> 
> Dear April,
> 
> Sorry, it took me so long to reply. I’ve been staying in the hospital with Steve whenever our moms will let me so I haven’t had time to get over to Dutch Hill and look for your letters or send you one back. Steve’s alright, don’t worry. He spends most of every winter laid up with pneumonia. You’d think his body would have realized it’s not worth the effort of being sick all the time by now but no dice.
> 
> It’s snowing outside. That’s nothing new— it snows pretty much non-stop from November to April. At least it seems that way sometimes. We’re reading Robert Frost in English class, I guess because it’s winter and because Mrs. Talbot has a sense of humor. She really likes that poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. What’s it like to be out in the middle of nowhere in winter? Did Frost get it right? I figure since you grew up on a plantation you’d know. It’s never that peaceful or solitary here but then this is Brooklyn. Only sometimes, maybe once a year, if you get up early enough after a snowstorm no one will be awake yet and it feels kind of like that poem but the opposite. The sun coming up just draws you out instead of in and makes the world feel full of potential like the snow-covered streets might take you somewhere new.
> 
> Then, of course, you have to go to work or school and the whole street looks dirtier than usual with all that white to contrast it.
> 
> It’s a pretty neat thing to see until that point.
> 
> Anyway, if it’s winter when you get this, stay warm and don’t get pneumonia.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Bucky

* * *

 

> March 15, 1989
> 
> Dear Bucky,
> 
> I'm nine! You missed my birthday! But that's okay since babcia took me to New York to see her house Up State. It was really cold. I've never seen so much snow before. It doesn't snow like that in Louisiana so it was a real treat.
> 
> Babcia and I turned the ballroom into a movie theater and we watched a whole load of her old films and she's so beautiful. I've decided I want to be elegant like my babcia. She was an actress, I told you before. Have you ever seen any of her movies?
> 
> I'm very sorry for Steve, please give him my love and well-wishes. Rabbi (and babcia) say that's what you're supposed to do when people who are friends (or friends of friends I think?) are ill. I've enclosed my babcia's recipe for her latkes. Babcia makes them whenever I'm sick or I'm sad. I'm really glad she's come to live with us.
> 
> I like Robert Frost, I'm glad you're reading it, it's mostly lonely. Here in the middle of nowhere. We're close to Gilbert but I'm not allowed to go to town unaccompanied. What's it like to be in the city? Is it busy? Is there noise? It's awfully quiet here all the time. I should like to live some place where there is noise.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> April

* * *

 

> April 12, 1937
> 
> Dear April,
> 
> I’m sorry I missed your birthday! I guess time isn’t working quite like it should or at least I’ll blame any date-related screw-ups I make on that. Happy belated Birthday!
> 
> Your grandma’s Katherine Adler, right? I’ve seen every single one of her pictures I can. Can you get her to sign a photograph for me? She’s one of my favorite actresses and, well, it’s a little weird to think she’s my friend’s grandma but I guess everyone is someone’s grandparent eventually, if they live long enough, right?
> 
> Anyway, it’d sure be swell to have her autograph if it’s not too much trouble.
> 
> My ma and I made latkes from your recipe and I’m pretty sure they’re the best latkes we’ve ever had. That’s saying something coming from my ma. She’s glad I’m showing an interest in learning how to cook too, even though it wasn’t so much me showing an interest in cooking as it was me wanting to make a recipe from the future for Steve... but I can’t tell her that.
> 
> There’s a radio on every street corner and all of them playing different music. The ones in French are my favorite; I don’t understand a word of it but it’s pretty to listen to. Jazz might have been invented here but they sure have a knack for it over there. Brooklyn’s noisy, yeah. All of New York City is noisy. Full of people at almost every hour of the day and around here places being empty is dangerous. (You don’t go down streets where there’s nobody else especially if you’re a girl or you’re liable to get in trouble. Remember that if you ever visit a city, alright? I’m not trying to scare you just being honest.)
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Bucky

* * *

 

> July 4, 1989
> 
> Dear Bucky,
> 
> It’s still early! You didn’t miss it. I’m hiding in my Daddy’s study right now writing this, I only came in to check on Daddy. He’s asleep in his armchair, so this will probably be short.
> 
> I’m very glad that you and your mama made the latkes and liked them so much! They’re magic. Or babcia is magic, it’s a little weird to think that she’s alive right now in your time, but she’s as young as my oldest sister. If I knew how to ask her back then to go and see you I would tell her to sign a picture for you and take it to you. (I made her sign a picture now. But it’s too big for the postbox so I’ll hold onto it because I’ve decided we’re going to meet someday).
> 
> Keep cooking! Babcia says that the best way to show someone you care about them is to cook for them.
> 
> I’ll remember to never go walking alone unless I can take care of myself. Daddy is waking up! Send Steve my well-wishes.
> 
> April

* * *

 

> July 23, 1939
> 
> Dear April,
> 
> You’re never going to guess what I got Steve for his birthday! Except you are because you’re going to see the pictures I enclosed but that’s not the point.
> 
> The point is Steve’s now got a camera that I bought him with the wages I earned working at the butcher’s shop and now I can send you pictures since we can afford to develop them. It won’t be a regular thing but it’s still exciting. I think it’s exciting. Anyway. The first picture’s of me. Steve let me hang onto it since it’s blurry and he was still figuring the camera out. Next is him and his mom Sarah and you can see my little sister Becca off to the side— she’s coming into the room with a cake late because she put it in the oven late and had to wait for it to cool. She’s got no sense of dramatic timing. Now you have faces to put with all the names in my letters!
> 
> Friday night we’re going to see the Cary Grant picture, Bringing Up Baby. It’s this screwball comedy all the papers are raving about— there’s a leopard on the poster so I can only imagine what he and Katherine Adler have gotten themselves into.
> 
> You got cameras in your when? How about sending me some pictures so I can have proof you’re real when they eventually decide to ship me off to the nuthouse?
> 
> Your friend,
> 
> Bucky
> 
> P.S. Ending letters always feels a little weird. Maybe I’m just bad at goodbyes?


End file.
